07 July 2011

The harmonised data on accidents at work are collected in the framework of the European Statistics on Accidents at Work (ESAW), on the basis of a methodology developed in 1990.

An accident at work is "a discrete occurrence in the course of work which leads to physical or mental harm". The data include only accidents involving more than 3 calendar days of absence from work, also called 'serious accidents'.

A fatal accident at work is defined as an accident which leads to the death of a victim within one year of the accident. .

The variables collected  on accidents at work include:

• Economic activity of the employer and Size of the enterprise
• Employment status, Occupation, Age, Sex and Nationality of victim
• the Geographical location of the accident, Date andTtime of the accident
• Type of Injury, Body part injured and the Severity of the accident (days lost).
• causes and circumstances of the accident: Workstation, Working environment, Working process, Specific physical activity, Material agent of the Specific Physical Activity, Deviation and Material agent of Deviation, Contact - mode of injury and Material agent of Contact - Mode of injury.

The national ESAW sources are the declarations of accidents at work, either to the public (Social Security) or private specific insurance for accidents at work, or to other relevant national authorities (Labour Inspection, etc.) for countries having a "universal" Social Security system. For the Netherlands only survey data are available for the non-fatal accidents at work (a special module in the national labour force survey).

From 2008 onwards data are disseminated in new structured tables providing more details with the selection of indicators displayed.

Data are disseminated in 2 sections: 'Main Indicators' and 'Details by economic sector NACE Rev2'. Depending on the table, data are broken down by NACE 'main sectors' or NACE 2 digit codes, ISCO group, country level, severity, sex, age, employment status, size  of the enterprise, body part injured and type of injury.

The indicators used are the numbers, percentage distributions, incidence rates and standardised incidence rates of serious and fatal accidents at work.

• The percentage distribution of serious accidents at work and fatal accidents at work is within each break down dimension.
• The incidence rate of serious accidents at work is the number of persons involved in accidents at work with more than 3 days' absence per 100,000 persons in employment.
• The incidence rate of fatal accidents at work is the number of persons with fatal accidents at work per 100,000 persons in employment.

The incidence rate is the indicator showing the relative importance of serious or fatal accidents at work in the working population. For serious and fatal accidents at work the numerator is the number of persons involved in either serious or fatal accidents that occurred during the year. The denominator is the number of persons in employment (the reference population) expressed in 100 000 persons.

The data relating to the number of persons in employment (the reference population covered by the ESAW reporting) are provided by the Labour Force Survey - LFS (with some corrections for Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Spain, France, Latvia, Luxembourg, Portugal and Slovenia).

In the tables produced following classifications are used:

• NACE: economic activities in the European Community.
• ISCO-88 COM: international standard classification of occupation
• NUTS - 3: nomenclature of territorial units for statistics
• ICSE: international classification of status in employment

For full details on these classifications, please see our nomenclature server Ramon.

From 2008 onwards the NACE Rev.2 is used for the statistic of Accidents at work and occupational diseases.

From 2011 onwards the ISCO-08 will be used for the statistic of Accidents at work and occupational diseases.

In general the private sector is covered by all national reporting systems. However some important sectors are not covered by all Member States. Among them belong following;

For ISCO - 08

0 Armed forces occupations

- 3351 Customs and border inspectors

- 3355 Police inspectors and detectives

- 541 Protective services workers

a. 5411 Fire-fighters

b. 5412 Police officers

c. 5413 Prison guards

d. 5414 Security guards

e. 5419 Protective services workers not elsewhere classified

For NACE Rev.2

- 84.22 Defence activities

- 84.23 Justice and judicial activities

- 84.24 Public order and safety activities

- 84.25 Fire services activities

In the dissemination, the section 'Main indicators' (hsw_mi) covers 13 so-called  NACE 'common branches' (NACE sectors A_C-N). The table hsw_mi03 presents data excluding the transport sector (NACE Rev. 2 H). In the detailed tables (hsw_ni) data are presented at the 2 digit level of NACE Rev.2 classification.

European Statistics on Accidents at Work (ESAW) and commuting accidents are based on case-by-case data for accidents at work resulting in more than 3 days' absence from work.

An accident at work is "a discrete occurrence in the course of work which leads to physical or mental harm".

• This includes accidents in the course of work outside the premises of one's business, even if caused by a third party (on clients' premises, on another company's premises, in a public place or during transport, including road traffic accidents) and cases of acute poisoning.
• It excludes accidents on the way to or from work (commuting accidents), occurrences having only a medical origin (such as a heart attack at work) and occupational diseases.

A fatal accident at work is defined as an accident which leads to the death of a victim within one year of the accident. In practice the notification of an accident as fatal ranges from national registration procedures where the accident is registered as fatal when the victim dies during the same day (Netherlands) or within 30 days after the accident (Germany) to cases where no time limits are laid down (Belgium, Greece, France except for deaths occurring after the recognition of a permanent disability, Italy, Luxemburg, Austria, Sweden and Norway). For the other Member States the time limit is within 1 year - for Spain: 1,5 years - after the date of the accident.

In a typical fatal accident at work, the death occurs within few days after the day of the accident and only the limitation to the "same day with the accident" involves a significant underestimation.

The ESAW methodology is in accordance with the ILO (International Labour Office) Resolution of 1998 concerning "Statistics of Occupational Injuries: resulting from Occupational Accidents" (Adopted by the Sixteenth International Conference of Labour Statisticians, Geneva, 6-15 October 1998).

The national ESAW sources are the declarations of accidents at work, either to the public (Social Security) or private specific insurance for accidents at work, or to other relevant national authority (Labour Inspection, etc.) for countries having a "universal" Social Security system. For the Netherlands only survey data are available for the non-fatal accidents at work (a special module in the national labour force survey).

The set of 24 variables is regularly collected by Member States.

• 1. Case number
• 2. Economic activity of the employer (NACE)
• 3. Occupation of Victim (ISCO)
• 4. Age of Victim
• 5. Sex of Victim
• 6. Type of Injury
• 7. Part of body injured
• 8. Geographical location
• 9. Date of the accident
• 10. Time of the accident (optional)
• 11. Size of enterprise (optional)
• 12. Nationality (optional)
• 13. Employment status
• 14. Days lost
• 15. Weight

For reference years from 2011 onwards,  3 of the additional 9 variables on 'causes and circumstances  of the accident' should be provided:

16. - 18. Workstation, Working environment, Working process

19. - 20. Specific Physical Activity, Material agent of Specific Physical Activity

21. - 22.  Deviation, Material agent of Deviation

23. - 24. Contact - mode of injury, Material agent of Contact - Mode of injury.

The definition of the variables is stated in the Commission Regulation (EU) No 349/2011 and further specified in the ESAW methodology.

Data are collected per one person. If a person is a victim of more than one accidental event at work during the reference year, one "accident" is reported and counted for each event.

Data are available for all EU-Member States, Norway and Switzerland.

All groups or sectors should be in principle covered by national legislation or other statutory arrangements that require cases of accidents at work to be notified to the authorities, or to a private or public insurance body in accordance with the law.

However, not all data are compiled for statistical purposes. The coverage of groups varies from one Member State to another. Self-employed and family members, as well as Fishing, Mining and Public sectors are not covered for some of them.

For this reason Eurostat disseminates statistics by a subset of NACE sectors, so-called as '13 common branches' A_C-N, which are the following:

A: AGRICULTURE, FORESTRY AND FISHING      

C: MANUFACTURING                

D: ELECTRICITY, GAS, STEAM AND AIR CONDITIONING SUPPLY        

E: WATER SUPPLY; SEWERAGE, WASTE MANAGEMENT AND REMEDIATION ACTIVITIES       

F: CONSTRUCTION              

G: WHOLESALE AND RETAIL TRADE; REPAIR OF MOTOR VEHICLES AND   MOTORCYCLES 

H: TRANSPORTATION AND STORAGE            

I:  ACCOMMODATION AND FOOD SERVICE ACTIVITIES   

J: INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION           

K: FINANCIAL AND INSURANCE ACTIVITIES  

L: REAL ESTATE ACTIVITIES       

M: PROFESSIONAL, SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL ACTIVITIES

N: ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT SERVICE ACTIVITIES

With regard to European Statistics on Accidents at Work (ESAW), data are available for the EU-Member States, Norway and Switzerland.

The accidents at work data collection started in 1994 (pilot collection in 1993). For Member States joining the European Union in 2004 onwards, and also for Switzerland, data are available from 2004 onwards.

There is no base year to which tables in hsw_mi and hsw_n2 sections refer.

Number

Percentage distribution

Incidence rate

Standardised incidence rate

The period to which the data refer to is the calendar year of notification.

On 11 April 2011 was adopted Commission Regulation (EU) No 349/2011 implementing Regulation (EC) No 1338/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council on Community statistics on public health and health and safety at work, as regards statistics on accidents at work.

Regulation EC N° 1338/2008

Community strategy 2007-2012 on health and safety at work

Commission Communication COM (2002) 118 Final and Council resolution 2002/C 161/01 on a new Community strategy for safety and health at work 2002-2006.

Council Regulation (EC) No 322/97 on Community Statistics.

Council Decision 1999/126/EC on the Community statistical programme 1998-2002.

Not applicable

Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics (recital 24 and Article 20(4)) of 11 March 2009 (OJ L 87, p. 164), stipulates the need to establish common principles and guidelines ensuring the confidentiality of data used for the production of European statistics and the access to those confidential data with due account for technical developments and the requirements of users in a democratic society.

Data are confidential and sent via security application called as e-Damis.

September, N+2 (where N is year of data collection)

See Web-site.

In line with the Community legal framework and the European Statistics Code of Practice Eurostat disseminates European statistics on Eurostat's website (see item 10 - 'Dissemination format') respecting professional independence and in an objective, professional and transparent manner in which all users are treated equitably. The detailed arrangements are governed by the Eurostat protocol on impartial access to Eurostat data for users.

Annual

No release calendar.

8.6% of workers in the EU experienced work-related health problems - Issue number 63/2009

Health and safety at work in Europe (1999-2007)

Work and health in the European Union - A statistical portrait (1994-2002)

Accidents at work in the EU 1998-1999

Accidents at work in the EU in 1996

Web-site Eurostat. Please consult free data on-line or refer to contact details.

Not applicable

http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat

Causes and circumstances of accidents at work in the EU (2008)

DG Employment and social affairs - Health and safety at work series - «European statistics on accidents at work (ESAW) - Methodology - 2001 edition» (Co-publication with Eurostat) on http://circa.europa.eu/Public/irc/dsis/hasaw/library

Eurostat publication: detailed tables 1994-2000: European social statistics - Accidents at work and work-related health problems

National Quality Reports are not available at the moment.

European Statistics Code of Practice

European Statistics Code of Practice

The main users of the ESAW data are/will be:

• Institutional users like other Commission services, particularly DG EMPL as well as executive agencies: EU-OSHA , EUROFOND and EUROGIP.
• Statistical users in Eurostat or in Member States National Statistical Institutes.
• Researchers, for instance organisation TNO.

End users - including the media - interested in the accidents at work.

We do not run any user satisfaction surveys.

For completeness, please refer to the Metadata overview document, in the annex.

The data presented are considered to be associated with a high level of overall accuracy. The national ESAW sources are the declarations of accidents at work either to an insurance for accidents at work (BE, DE, EL, ES, FR, IT, LU, AT, PT, FI and CH), or to other relevant national authority (usually Labour Inspectorate) for Member States having a «universal Social Security system» (BG, CZ, DK, EE, IE, CY, LV, LT, HU, MT, NL, PL, RO, SI, SK, SE, UK and NO).

Serious accidents:

The incident rates are fully comparable inside each of these two groups of Member States (insurance-based system and universal Social Security system), but they are not strictly comparable between the two groups, though adjustments are made on the basis of reporting levels. However, the index (trends) is comparable between all Member States and Candidate Countries.

Fatal accidents:

In two countries (UK and IE) accidents at work occurring in road traffic (during work) are not covered by the reporting system. Such accidents at work account for about one half of all fatal accidents at work. Therefore for comparable figures on fatalities, these accidents have to be excluded also from the data of the other Member States. This reduces the comprehensiveness of the data for fatalities.

The ESAW collection is based mainly on data coming from registers. The weighting procedure applied to correct sampling is applied in the Netherlands (all variables), Malta (variables on causes and circumstances) and Switzerland (some variables).

We do not have enough information to provide assessment of non-sampling error in countries where sampling is used.

Member States have a deadline for data transmission in June N+2 (where N is year of data collection).

First dissemination is in September, N+2 (where N is year of data collection).

The punctuality of transmitting files and all metadata needed for data processing has to be improved.

Data on non fatal accidents are considered to be associated with a restricted level of comparability across countries, while data on fatal accidents with a high level.

To ensure comparability across countries, common definitions and classifications have been developed for the ESAW data. In addition, the incidence rates used for the calculation of the index are standardised (by economic activity in EU27) to eliminate differences due to different distributions of the national workforce across the high-risk and low-risk industries.

The remaining source of incomparability is due to relying on two basic types of data collection systems; insurance systems and labour inspectorate reporting systems.

The data on non fatal accidents for countries that entered in EU in 2004, are not disseminated because of under-reporting problems at the present time.

The full comparability over time is not available, because of new dissemination tables starting in 2008.

For data of 2008 reference year we do not have any other data source to compare with.

For 2007 reference year and the collection hsw_acc_work, the data might be consulted with the results of ad hoc module on accidents at work in Labour Force Survey (2007) under the name hsw_apex in the navigation tree of the Health and safety at work database.

The data are consistent within country and table.

We do not have relevant information about the cost and burden associated with ESAW data collection.

There is no systematic revision of previous year data. Data are occasionally revised, if a country notifies Eurostat about changes in the data and metadata.

For the EU aggregates the provisional data are re-calculated when Member States send updated or previously missing data.

Data on accidents at work are mainly based on administrative data in the accordance with a methodology being developed with EU-Member States from 1990. The data collection started in 1994 (pilot collection in 1993). The national ESAW sources are the declarations of accidents at work, either to the public (Social Security) or private specific insurance companies for accidents at work ("insurance based systems": BE, DE, EL, ES, FR, IT, LU, AT, PT and FI), or to other relevant national authority (Labour Inspection, etc.) for Member States having a "universal Social Security system": DK, IE, NL, SE, UK and NO. For the Netherlands only survey data are available for the non-fatal accidents at work (a special module in the national labour force survey).

The data relating to persons in employment are provided by the Labour Force Survey. This reference working population used to calculate the incidence rate is filtered according to the groups actually covered by the ESAW national data.

Annual

ESAW data are extracted from the national administrative databases according to ESAW concepts, definitions, variables and classifications. Data are submitted yearly and inserted in the ESAW database of Eurostat.

A consistency check is performed for each individual variable to identify codes which are not in accordance with ESAW methodology. Countries are asked to check the identified inconsistencies and provide corrections.

Data on non fatal accidents are weighted in 11 out of 29 countries. Countries specify weight either in the input files or send reporting levels by NACE sector. In the second case, Eurostat calculates and assigns the calculated weight to each record in the database.

Statistical adjustments:

Because the frequency of work accidents is higher in some branches (high-risk sectors), an adjustment is performed to get more standardised incidence rates. For more details, please refer to the summary methodology (see under 21.3 Annex)

Adjustments for road traffic accidents at work:

IE and UK are not in a position to provide data on road traffic and transport fatal accidents in the course of work. This has a significant impact on the national numbers of fatalities. For this reason, Eurostat makes an adjustment by excluding road traffic and transport fatalities from the calculation of the incidence rate of fatal accidents at work for all Member States.

In the statistical domain of Accidents at work are tables which include road traffic accidents in all sectors and also two tables describing fatal occupational accidents where road traffic accidents outside the "Transport" sector are excluded.

For fatal accidents, the standardised incidence rates by Member State are only available excluding road traffic accidents and accidents on board of any mean of transport in the course of work outside the "Transport" sector (NACE A_C to N).

EU aggregates

•  Data exclude Greece.
•  Data also exclude Portugal for some tables because of aggregates.

Latvia

•  Data on non-fatal accidents: Data include a certain level of under-reporting.

Austria

• The standardised incidence rates 2008 have to be revised.
• Austria explained the high incidence rates of fatal accidents with the use of a different definition at national level which included all accidents leading to the death of the victim even if the death occurred years after the accident. Also, in the agricultural sector, all accidents were recorded as accidents at work, including commuting accidents.

Poland

• Data on non-fatal accidents: Data include a certain level of under-reporting.

 Portugal

• Input data of Accidents at work are delivered in the aggregated tables, which implies the absence of certain breakdowns in some tables.

Romania

• Data on non-fatal accidents: Data include a certain level of under-reporting.

Sweden

• A self-employed who has employees is also coded as employee in case of an accident.

United Kingdom

•  Except Northern Ireland (code ukc_m).
•  For the transport sector: Road traffic accidents (RTA's) are NOT included inany UK data. This exclusion covers persons working in sector I,and so workers such as truck drivers are not included. Road traffic accidents are administered by the police and fall out the scope ofthereporting scheme for work-related accidents (RIDDOR).
• In Great Britain data are adjusted by weights calculated from reporting levels by NACE sectors (rev. 2) in 2008.